My 360 Died — AGAIN

Another one bites the dust. Five, that's right - FIVE, count 'em, consoles have failed on me now.

The beauty of this experience is even better than the last - the customer service people had no record of the serial number of my 360. Great!

I have already called, and gotten a repair order, and sent the old box in. After numerous calls and severely long wait time to talk to "a supervisor" every single time to get this straightened out, now they have another problem.

After the last phone call I made, I was sent a coffin to return my 360. I sent it over a week ago. According to UPS, Microsoft received it Tuesday 10-14. So today, Monday 10-20, Xbox customer support call me and leave a message telling me the serial number doesn't match the one I gave them over the phone. (The one I read three times to them, and my wife read to them once.)

It seems the last person I spoke with just made one work, or maybe used one from one of the previous consoles I sent, who knows.

So now, I sit here, waiting. AGAIN. I have gone through the normal customer service rep, and have to wait on "a supervisor." As I type this, the call and waiting have gone past 50 minutes. Microsoft has the most ridiculous customer service. If "a supervisor" isn't available in the first 10-15 minutes, why the heck can't they call me back? I have to waste an hour or more to get this straightened out so they can send me another box that will last who knows how long.

[UPDATE]

To follow up on Monday's call, I waited on hold over 1 hour and 15 minutes and no one ever came to the phone. I called in on another line and got hold of another level 1 customer service rep. She couldn't transfer me to a supervisor so I was told I would get a call back within 24-48 hours. So I waited, and did not receive this call. Today, Thursday, I call again. I get the call escalated to a supervisor after extensive questions that I have already answered numerous times, and waiting on hold for a while yet again.

This supervisor tells me I have to wait on yet another call back, for a specialist. It is not looking good for receiving my console back any time soon, as I have been told I would be called back twice on this repair, and it never happened.

Microsoft has the absolute worst customer service for getting consoles repaired. I have no idea what happened with the serial number situation, as their system wouldn't take the number I originally gave them. When I called back later, since I never received my promised call back, the rep quickly gave me a repair order and sent a box. I have no idea what serial number she put in, since the system evidently took it immediately, but it wasn't the correct number.

This is the fourth console I've had to send to MS for repair (I have also returned a fifth one to a retailer), and the second time things got so fouled up I had to have my repair escalated, call in numerous times, wait on calls back, and wait an excessively long time to receive a replacement (3-4 weeks).

Each replacement I have received has been another repaired unit that lasted only a number of months.

Take away lessons:

If you buy an Xbox 360, buy it with a retailer replacement warranty for as long as possible, it will be worth it.

If your console dies after warranty, don't waste time with Xbox repair, sell the box on ebay as a broken unit and cut your losses.